


The Sound of Silence (Sounds Like 16 kHz)

by Anonymous



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gradual Hearing Loss, Hard of Hearing, POV Second Person, Personal Experience, Tinnitus, loss of hearing, personal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 16:17:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19276918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Gradual hearing loss, combined with tinnitus. You had to see a specialist to tell you something you already know - your ears won’t stop ringing, and you’re slowly going deaf.OR: The author is tired and upset, so she wrote about her hearing loss because that's how she's decided to cope.





	The Sound of Silence (Sounds Like 16 kHz)

It’s the little sounds that go first. Things that get gradually quieter day after day, until one morning you wake up and the noise is gone completely. The ceiling fan in the dead of night, the soft hum of various electronics. Vanished from your senses, though all still working. Just missing something.

Things like this take time. Sometimes it’s unnoticeable until you think about the fact that you haven’t heard it. The buzz of the electric toothbrush from the bathroom beside your bedroom. The whir of fans from your brother’s laptop. The sound of crickets through your closed window (not the cicadas though, those screaming buggers. They used to irritate you, prevented you from falling asleep some nights. Now you’re not sure if you want to laugh or cry because of that loud noise).

~*~

Gradual hearing loss, combined with tinnitus. You had to see a specialist to tell you something you already know - your ears won’t stop ringing, and you’re slowly going deaf.

The doctor eyes you with pity as he says it. The tinnitus might stay at the same level. If you never aggravate it. But the hearing loss is set in stone. No matter how slow it goes, it isn’t something that can be reversed or stopped. One day you’re going to wake up, and you won’t be able to hear anything.

You wonder if maybe you’re cursed in some way. You won’t be able to hear, but your world is never, ever going to be silent.

(You have to get an explanation about what would aggravate your tinnitus. Heavy machinery. Concerts. Music played too loud. The list goes on and on.)

(A week later you’re at a rock concert. You’ve been waiting for this for months.)

(Needless to say, you’ve decided that you’d rather do the things you love and potentially make the stupid ringing in your stupid (useless) ears worse than stop.)

~*~

A list of things that you can’t hear anymore that you’re glad for:

1\. The godawful high pitched whine of the microwave. You’re not even sorry that your brother can still hear it you’re so relieved.  
2\. The next door neighbor’s sex noises. Holy shit, you can actually sleep in peace for once.  
3\. The squeaky bathroom door that nobody would oil, and everyone would use in the dead of night.  
4\. The awful sounds of the neighbor’s kid learning how to play the clarinet. You were halfway convinced the poor dear was tone deaf.  
5\. The blender in the morning. Every morning. God does your mother like her smoothies.

~*~

A list of the things you can’t hear anymore that you miss:

1\. The pops and crackles of your fathers record player from the next room over. The pleasant kind of white noise that comes from living in a house with music playing constantly.  
2\. Your best friends snarky commentary during lectures. He sits beside you sure, but he can’t lean over or get louder without alerting the professor. He’s started to write it all down but still. You miss his voice.  
3\. Entire conversations in restaurants. Why must everything in this world be so loud?  
4\. The awful sounds of the neighbor’s kid learning how to play clarinet. He’s tone deaf, sure, but he’s so overly excited to learn an instrument (and update you on his progress) that your sort of miss his terrible, terrible noise. At least he was having fun.  
5\. The bells on the cat’s collar. Both cats collars. The dark gray cats that you trip over in the dark. Because you can’t hear them moving. Fuck you’re tired of steping on tails.

~*~

You decide that this hearing loss thing is really overrated the morning you start your mother’s near silent car three times because you couldn’t hear the engine turn on. You also make a note to call your doctor because honestly, you’re pretty sure that hearing aids would be useful at this point.

Your doctor vetoes the hearing aids. You make a note to find a new doctor.

~*~

At some point, you eventually realize that your music has been getting progressively louder and louder as time wears on.

You burst into tears at that point. Music is the one thing you love, above all else, and it’s just now hitting you that one day you’ll never hear it again.

You spend the next two hours lying on the floor feeling the bass and the drums vibrate through you, still deeply upset that this is the only thing you’ll have left one day.

~*~

Your brother gets a new laptop. The computer hums at the exact same pitch that your ears ring. You want to cry. You try very hard not to scream.

(You manage not to cry until much, much later that night (morning?). You fail at not screaming, but refusing to tell anyone why you just started yelling out of seemingly nowhere. You can’t bear the thought of the pitying looks.)

~*~

Your mother forgets that you have trouble hearing her sometimes. She often walks ahead of you, often doesn’t look at you when she talks, lets the sound of her voice project away from you, ensures that you cannot see her lips until you make her stop and face you. She tries her best you know, but it’s still frustrating.

Your father’s voice is a steady tenor, but he has a habit of mumbling and muttering out words. You can only sometimes read his lips. The beard and moustache combination make it difficult to see how his lips form at times, but you can’t and won’t ask him to shave. You love his beard, and you’ll miss it if it’s gone.

Your brother has a stutter; he uses lots of filler words, hums out sounds when he doesn’t know what to say. You can’t begrudge him that, it’s not his fault after all (you too have a stutter, use too many filler words (like, um, you can’t help it), and hum through the awkward sentences you form). But despite that he’s the best at making sure you understand what he’s saying; he’s always facing you, he pitches his voice louder when you ask, slows his words down so that you can better read his lips.

Out of all the voices in your life, your younger brother’s smooth baritone is probably the one you’ll miss the most.

~*~

Gradual hearing loss, the specialist tells you. You’ll probably be deaf by the time your thirty-five. Forty if you’re lucky, they think.

Tinnitus, he explains. A constant ringing in your ears, one that will never, ever go away.

A life that will lose all sound, except for that stupid high pitched sound echoing through your head.

A curse that you’ll never be rid of.

You could scream.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I really am gradually losing my hearing. Yes, I really have tinnitus (in both ears), and yes, the pitch of my ringing is 16 kHz. I checked. All of these are sounds that I have actually lost (I've lost more than just these, obviously, but still).
> 
> Hearing loss sucks kids.


End file.
